nds
upon responsible citizenship. And we need a new sense of responsibility
for a new century. There is work to do, work that government alone
cannot do: teaching children to read; hiring people off welfare rolls;
coming out from behind locked doors and shuttered windows to help
reclaim our streets from drugs and gangs and crime; taking time out of
our own lives to serve others.

Each and every one of us, in our own way, must assume personal
responsibility--not only for ourselves and our families, but for our
neighbors and our nation. Our greatest responsibility is to embrace a
new spirit of community for a new century. For any one of us to succeed,
we must succeed as one America.

The challenge of our past remains the challenge of our future--will we
be one nation, one people, with one common destiny, or not? Will we all
come together, or come apart?

The divide of race has been America's constant curse. And each new
wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and
contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religious or political conviction
are no different. These forces have nearly destroyed our nation in the
past. They plague us still. They fuel the fanaticism of terror. And they
torment the lives of millions in fractured nations all around the world.

These obsessions cripple both those who hate and, of course, those who
are hated, robbing both of what they might become. We cannot, we will
not, succumb to the dark impulses that lurk in the far regions of the
soul everywhere. We shall overcome them. And we shall replace them with
the generous spirit of a people who feel at home with one another.

Our rich texture of racial, religious and political diversity will be
a Godsend in the 21st century. Great rewards will come to those who can
live together, learn together, work together, forge new ties that bind
together.

As this new era approaches we can already see its broad outlines. Ten
years ago, the Internet was the mystical province of physicists;
today, it is a commonplace encyclopedia for millions of schoolchildren.
Scientists now are decoding the blueprint of human life. Cures for our
most feared illnesses seem close at hand.

The world is no longer divided into two hostile camps. Instead, now we
are building bonds with nations that once were our adversaries. Growing
connections of commerce and culture give us a chance to lift the
fortunes and spirits of people the world over. And for the v